Eighty Days
by hiddenmoments
Summary: By Ian's reckoning, it takes a further eighty days to completely destroy a man. There are no happy endings here. No longer a one-shot, series begins with One Mistake. Ian-centric with appearances by the rest of the team.


**_The characters aren't mine, I just borrowed (read: broke) them for a little while._**

**_i._  
**  
Everything is a blur and he knows that his knees can't support even only his weight much longer. He's been leading for he doesn't even know how long because it doesn't matter how hard they press their entangled hands (_fused together because there was never anything else to hold on to in there_) to the bleeding gash it just won't stop pouring. (_you've been bleeding for miles_)

He doesn't know how they got to where they are, he doesn't even really know where they are (_away they're away and that was the plan all along_) but thinks that if he has to die, here and now are as good a place and time as any.(_at least someone will find us here and not in a forest miles away_) Blood stains his skin as his arms tighten around the other man's chest, the knot that is their hands still pressed tight to the wound that is only bleeding sluggishly now. (_goddammit your help would be appreciated right now_) Dark, damp hair is soft against his chin and jaw as he curls around the shivering body, as they try to be a smaller target in the shadows. (_they'll find us again just like the other times and this time we can't let them)_ He's as close as he'll ever come to prayer when he whispers to the empty air and begs for someone to find them as the only thing he has left in the world to hold onto bleeds out in his arms. (_please let it be someone who will know better than to let the people who care see him, me, us like this_)

His heart thuds in his chest and his breath is shallower than it should be. He thinks maybe he should do something to let the man huddled against his chest know that he's here, that neither of them are dying alone. (_never been very good at social norms the psychologist said but maybe there isn't a social norm for this so it isn't my fault_) He thinks that maybe, just maybe, he manages to press his lips to whatever skin is closest to them and hold tighter for a moment as the shivering dies away. His throat closes and everything implodes behind his eyelids. (_wait for me please, I promise I'm right behind you_)

The darkness is peace, redemption, (_please let this calm be permanent_) and now, at the end of the hunt, the end of all things, he's glad he isn't alone. (_thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou_)

**_ii._****  
**  
Light explodes behind his eyes and forces them open. He realises, should have known, that Fate wasn't going to be kind to him and let that be the end. The gaze he meets is more thousand yard stare than he's seen since the old days. (_so sorry but I tried_) The voice says his name and he doesn't remember the last time he heard it said so tenderly. His lungs are drowning in molten fire and breathing is the most painful thing he's ever done. A blink of acknowledgement is the most he can muster. The eyes crinkle slightly in a way that he remembers. (_goddammit Don who did you give your face to when you stopped bleeding and when did your eyes change colour and get so dead_)

He tries to speak, tries to ask why his arms are empty and what happened to all the blood but the words won't leave his throat and he can't breathe. The face comes into sharper relief and he realises that there's a tube in his throat and hands around his wrists. (_panic panic panic panic_) The voice tells him to calm down, that he's okay and he needs to stop fighting because the tube is just helping him. It takes long, long moments for panic and terror to give way to confusion and resignation. It takes even longer moments for him to recognise the face (_go away Colby, please,_ _we never wanted you to see this, let us go_) and then his entire body is overtaken by the molten fire in his chest and the last thing he sees is sad, tired green eyes.

When he wakes again the tube is gone but the green eyes remain, still with that thousand yard stare. He swallows and his chest is a dull ache rather than fire and agony and he can feel blood flowing to his extremities for the first time in he doesn't even know how long. (_it was supposed to be the end_) There is a voice with the eyes and it tells him quietly, calmly, that they are very glad to see him awake even if the stare won't go away. (_Don tried so hard to fix that stare goddammit we ruined everything_) He turns his head away and closes his eyes, feeling a softness under his skull that is unfamiliar but welcome, because he can't take that stare anymore. A hand that a something somewhere in him knows wraps around fingers he forgot he had and the gentle touch breaks him. (_don't don't don't don't_)

Somewhere in his mind he hears a tiny sob as he shatters into a million pieces.

His next memory is of brown eyes in a familiar face that makes him think of pasta and mountains and slender fingers under his own on a trigger he knows better than anything else in the world. (_except for their hands tangled together but even both hands can't staunch the flow of blood no matter how long they stay there_) The dull ache in his chest is barely noticeable this time and the brown eyes are missing that stare that still haunts him. This voice is louder, stronger, when it says his name and he can hear something his mind dimly translates as relief. (_blood everywhere_) His fingers twitch when they're touched now and these eyes crinkle too but that thousand yard stare isn't there. (_we didn't ruin her, I didn't ruin her, the blood's gone all gone_) He tries to squeeze back this time because his hallucinations have never been so real before and maybe, just maybe, he's okay with it not being over. A rasp that once upon a time might have been a name (_Nikki_) leaves his lips and the face smiles so brightly that it nearly blinds his tired eyes.

**_iii._****  
**  
The green eyes are there again, with the brown ones, when he realises that the throbbing ache in every part of him means that he's alive. (_Colby, Nikki, being here again wasn't part of the plan but maybe just maybe it'll be okay when you turn up, hurry Don we need you_) The stare is probably only nine hundred yards now and he blinks, curling his newly rediscovered fingers against the warmness surrounding them. The brown eyes are swimming with tears but that blinding smile is there again and the green eyes are still bloodshot and weary but they crinkle like before and white teeth appear between lips that he thinks are bruised. (_it was over,_ _we never wanted you to see this but god we missed you_)

His mind can't make his mouth work properly yet but he curls his fingers and rasps again because he thinks that even if it doesn't sound like a name to him, they recognise what he's trying to say. Another fifty yards drop from the stare and maybe it isn't irreparable.

Sunlight falls onto the sterile walls and floors and the coverlet across his legs. His chest doesn't hurt so badly and he's sitting up, for the first time in however long it's been since he realised it wasn't the end. The green stare is solidly at eight hundred yards, focused on his face from the corner where it hasn't left for what might be as long as four days. He doesn't know (_time is irrelevant now that it isn't running out_) and can't bring himself to concentrate long enough to figure it out. His voice is better, and he can utter short but whole sentences now that his body has caught up with his mind.

The warm brown eyes and green eight hundred yard stare are the most familiar things he's seen in what feels like a long time and they rarely leave his sight. (_Colby and Nikki are here Don, I don't remember when you left or where you've gone, please come back_) He tries to ask about the other man but he can't say the words regardless of how hard he tries. Another pair of brown eyes, and lighter hazel ones. He remembers them too. (_David, Liz, you weren't supposed to find out weren't supposed to see_) The hazel ones have almost the same stare as the green (_I knew I knew I knew I knew, I'm so sorry I took him, so sorry_) and the brown eyes aren't as warm as the ones that make him think of mountains and pasta. (_don't worry you won't ever hate me as much as I do_)

He's been in the sterile room for thirty two days (_you were bleeding so much, where are you_) when he first walks to the bathroom on his own. He knows it has been that long because the warm brown eyes tell him so and the pride in them makes him feel five years old with a messy breakfast tray, beaming at his mother. (_I made you some tea, I hope you like it_)

Another two days and he's spending more time sitting in the chair by the window than in the narrow, white bed and he still can't find what he's looking for. On day forty they tell him he can go home. He's forgotten where home is because it's been so long. Brown eyes tell him to come home with them and everything will be okay. Green stare tells him to trust them and they'll make it okay. (_please try even if it won't ever be okay again because nothing is making any sense and god it hurts_)

Another twenty days later his body listens to most of his commands and even the other brown eyes and hazel stare are warmer and present more often. (_why haven't you come home yet, we're waiting_) The house is familiar in the same way he remembers childhood dreams and he discovers something new that he remembers every day. The green stare is there when warm brown isn't and warm brown is there when green stare isn't. (_there's only one thing missing, why won't you come back. where are you, please come back_)  
**_  
iv_****.  
**  
He touches his rifle again on day eighty. His fingers remember it even if his mind shuts down when his fingers settle on the trigger. The weapon clatters to the ground and green stare's strength surrounds him suddenly as everything swims in blood that won't go away even when he closes his eyes and holds his breath. (_tangled_ _hands trying to stop the blood, so much blood but it never stops_)

His screams split the air as the floodgates fall to pieces. (_no don't take him from me please_) A solid chest is at his back and the slender fingers tangled with his own belong to the soft warmth at his front as both strive to keep him from shattering but he knows that it should have been the end when they took the bleeding man from his arms and never returned him. (_I was right behind you Don, why didn't you wait for me_)

* * *

_**So this was a little unexpected and written entirely over the course of a usually boring Monday work shift. I have some ideas about a longer version, including before, during and after from some different perspectives. I figured I'd see how this turned out first considering it wouldn't leave my mind until I got it onto paper and it probably still won't leave, I'm pretty sure I broke just about everyone involved in the making of this.**_


End file.
